There is a place on the internet where supposedly, at least when it comes to influencer culture, no topic goes unturned. It’s a place where criticism is not only welcomed but deemed ‘necessary’ – a public service of sorts – and where the public has a say on very public goings-on. It is popular – some threads have up to 35,000 replies – and it only seems to be growing. There's always something Tattle Life users are raring to talk about, whether it be Alice Evans and Ioan Gruffudd's custody battle, or the amount of time influencer Grace Gernon spends with her kids.
You might have heard of Tattle Life due to allegations of harassment that began to surface earlier this year. For the uninitiated, the site is an internet forum mostly dedicated to talking about online personalities like Mrs Hinch, or Zoella. While the site proclaims to be a ‘commentary website on public business social media accounts’, since the summer it has come into more than one serious controversy concerning bullying. The journalist Sali Hughes posted about the online trolling she received from Tattle Life and at the time of writing a petition to close the site down has more than 69,000 signatures in support. Those who are the subject of discussion – which ranges from outrage over undeclared social-media advertising to the decimation of someone’s eyebrows – say that the harassment they receive is unbearable.
Tattle Life has received a great deal of backlash as a result, with one Guardian article describing it as 'the most hate-filled corner of the web' and Glamour calling it 'abusive user-posted content', even asking 'how is this abuse allowed to continue in plain sight?' And while the site is still fully functioning, it also receives a great deal of push back from people who object to its nature.
There’s little information available about the beginnings of Tattle Life, but it appears to have been created in July 2018 according to a post by one of the site’s moderators ‘Yel’. ‘I got fed up with being treated like a child and given warnings by overzealous mods talking about the very on topic furniture and related politics,’ she wrote under a post titled ‘Hi welcome to some new gossip forums’. ‘They don’t care, so set this up.’
‘They’, it seems, refers to the plethora of sites that work in a similar way to Tattle Life, loosely like this: an influencer – an ‘Instagam-famous’ person, or YouTube vlogger, mostly – is chosen, a thread is posted with an opening question asking for ‘thoughts’ and users wade in. It’s old hat in terms of internet culture, where forums and sites dedicated to discussing the intricacies of those who live their lives online have long been active. Alongside Tattle Life, there’s GOMI (Get Off My Internets), Lipstick Alley, Gossip Guru and sub-sections of Reddit (the ‘front page of the internet’), like blogsnark. And, of course, Mumsnet.
Just like any group, on or offline, group camaraderie is part of human life. We’re drawn to places where we feel we belong.
It’s a curious part of the internet to visit. Tattle Life’s users appear to be mostly women, mostly so-called anti-fans who dedicate excessive amounts of time and energy to talking about people they don’t seem to like very much. Or at all. So what is the draw?
Just like any group, on or offline, group camaraderie is part of human life. We’re drawn to places where we feel we belong, whether that’s the local pub or via a niche online pursuit. That strengthened sense of social identity not only improves our confidence, but also our health, so says some research. For one Mumsnet user, who wishes to remain anonymous, that meant finding other women in similar situations to hers: finding it difficult to adjust after a child had left home, advising others and finding purpose. ‘Mumsnet also taught me a bit about feminism,’ she says. ‘But then it all got a bit hostile.’
It’s easy to stereotype this sort of behaviour – which begins as bolstering and ends in dissent – as the innately feminine ‘bitching’. The sites that we’re talking about are mainly populated by women – interestingly, many former Mumsnet users migrated to Tattle Life when the site got too ‘dull’ – but it’s not necessarily a gendered issue. In fact, the truth of it is that, according to research by Pew, men are actually more active on internet forums than women overall. Rather – at least as recently as 2015 – women are more likely to use Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Let’s also remember that men ‘bitch’ too, they’re just less likely to be defined by it.
While gossiping doesn’t have to be negative – some research claims that gossip helps us analyse situations for what is right and wrong, and learn from that example – there’s something more to these sites that doesn’t sit right. For a start, while gossip isn’t gendered, the subjects of ‘discussion’ certainly are. Few men are the subject of threads and, those who are don’t get half as much hate.
There’s an underlying air of apparent virtuosity lingering, especially around Tattle Life. Users appear to believe that they are nobly holding people who have large social followings to account in terms of advertising standards and the ‘honesty’ they practise as an influencer (although influencers like Sali Hughes strenuously deny accusations of dishonesty or impartiality). The levels of hostility, nastiness and abuse are out of control, meanwhile. There is little self-reflection or acknowledgement, rather it all seems very defensive. The self-appointed regulators desperately need regulating.
I tried several times to speak to someone from Tattle Life but the posts I wrote, asking for people to tell me what the draw is themselves, looking for the other side of this sorry little tattle-tale or for some positivity, were deleted by moderators. One of them, Helen, replied to my email asking for a chat, but only to direct me to a response to claims of bullying that she posted back in June, during the first row.
She confirmed that the site does ‘NOT encourage bullying, arguments, targeting influencers or their supporters’. ‘Gossip happens, it happens everywhere,’ the statement reads, ‘and if you put yourself on line [sic] that is going to happen. However for months now, this site has held all influencers accountable, when it comes to running their BUSINESS, because these channels are a business…
‘...We are doing our best to keep things under control and delete any troll accounts or abuse if some slips though, apologies to everyone, we’re only human, we might miss something, please do report a post and it will often be deleted in minutes.
‘But Unlike influencers. We own it and apologies,’ it concludes (the grammar and spelling is their own). ‘We don’t try to ignore it and blame others.’
Quite.
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